Wednesday, December 8, 2010

This is my new boxy black blazer from the Cat Protection Society Op Shop. It is made from a lovely dense wool, is fully lined and features real buttoning cuffs and patch pockets for handkerchiefs and emergency liquorice all sorts. I would dissolve into a small gelatinous mass if I were to wear it in this current weather so it's on ice, so to speak, until at least next May.

I buy something from the Cat Protection Society Op Shop whenever I can, partly because they have good loot but mostly because they do a sterling job in caring for cats. For many years I was the chief carer of Chloe, a lovely talkative calico cat who was also entirely deranged. She once took up residence in the wood cooker and could be rarely persuaded to step outside. At the height of that particular bout of madness she even took to taking her meals in the oven.

Once she moved into a disused factory nearby and no amount of coaxing, fish snacks or warm cosy beds could keep her home. She seemed to adopt a strange new homeless cat persona and would take off, back to her cardboard box in the factory, as soon as my back was turned. Eventually some nearby workers, unaware of my efforts to keep my cat in her own home, assumed the mental cat was a stray and took Chloe to the Cat Protection Society. I didn't know where she was for two frantic days. I called vets, some entirely uninterested police stations and a lost cat service. I tried the Cat Protection Society in desperation. The lady who answered was very kind. "Yes, I think we have your cat," she said. "We certainly have one who talks a lot! !" When I arrived to collect Ms Fruitcake I found her in a very swank top floor cage apartment, laying back and smiling like Lana Turner might if someone turned her into a cat.

"She's treating it like a spa holiday," another nice volunteer said. Chloe greeted me with mild condescension, as if I was a service worker she might have employed years ago but could could barely remember.

For all Chloe's lunacy, I was grateful for her safety, and grateful too that she had been cared by people who liked and understood her so well. As discussed yesterday, Mr Zucchini has a new home but here are others who are in need of some assistance:

It saddens me that I can't gather up all the Darias and Soda Pops and rush them all home to live with me, but it's nice to know that they are being cared for with patience and kindness.

And here's Chloe in the early stages of her mind-over-matter phase, sleeping on rocks.